The researchers looked at two main outcomes - deaths due to stroke and cardiovascular disease - and analysed associations between total dairy intake and mortality, and associations between individual dairy food groups and mortality.

The researchers found that there was no clear evidence that intake of dairy products was associated with coronary heart disease or stroke deaths.

However, childhood calcium intake was inversely associated with stroke mortality but not heart disease mortality.

Children who were in the group that had the highest calcium intake and dairy product consumption were found to have lower mortality rates than those in the lower intake groups.

The authors conclude: "Children whose family diet in the 1930s was high in calcium were at reduced risk of death from stroke. Furthermore, childhood diets rich in dairy or calcium were associated with lower all-cause mortality in adulthood. Replication in other study populations is needed because other factors, such as socioeconomic differences, explains part of these findings."

epi.bris.ac/